


Ruthless Calculus

by YourLocalPriestess



Series: Message Failed To Send [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: And More Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Paragon Commander Shepard, Post-Suicide Mission, Set directly after Arrival DLC, and SMUT, and since Shep just went against a literal invasion by herself expect angst, everyone survived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 18:39:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8113099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourLocalPriestess/pseuds/YourLocalPriestess
Summary: Commander Shepard has always made the tough calls. She has never hesitated or questioned herself. There was an old Earth saying, that people only made the best decisions they could given their circumstances, so every decision was the best one at the time, or something to that effect. Shepard had done her best to emulate that, and believe it of others. It had gotten her through when she had to make the decisions that hurt as much as they helped. But the weight of a galaxy can be a heavy one. Post-ME2





	

Shepard stared at the blank screen. It had been blank for almost an hour. She took a shuddering breath and began to type, only to immediately delete it after a few sentences. God, how did anyone do this? How did someone just file a mission report where they made a decision that resulted in the loss of a system? Of so many thousands of lives? Lives she hadn’t saved. Lives she had killed. Lives that had families and friends and dreams and —

He throat began to constrict and her hands were shaking where they hovered over keys she couldn’t bring herself to touch. She tried to swallow past her guilt. She shook her head violently. No, she had to write this. This was no different than any other person she’d lost. It was no different than Kaidan. No different than the colonies of lives lost on the Collector ships. The situation had been out of her hands. She hadn’t had a choice.

Except there was a choice. And she’d made it.

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the quiet whoosh of the door opening. She turned and was immediately relieved to see Garrus. He leaned against the corner of the wall facing her desk and observed her with those keen, piercing blue eyes.

“Hey.” She offered a small half smile and pushed back the red bangs that had spilled over her face. “How’s it going?”

“I’m holding up,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. His eyes shifted slightly, going softer, raking over every part of her for any changes. “How are you doing?”

Shepard tried not to think of it as a real question when he asked. She smiled and leaned back in her chair. “I’m fine. You know me.”

One of his mandibles twitched in what she had learned was his way of stalling while he thought. He was leaning languidly against the wall, arms crossed in front of himself. She knew he was trying for an easy, relaxed look, but she could read tension in him from across a battlefield, let alone in their bedroom.

“Cal—” he started, his voice carrying that new duel tone she’d only ever heard him use with her. She had to swallow at the sound of him using her first name.

“Garrus,” she said, cutting him off. Her voice came out more hoarse than she’d expected, more ragged, a plea for him not to continue. Part of her hated to expose so much of herself in a word, so many of her emotions laid bare. His presence drew them out of her without giving her the conscious choice to give them to him.

He moved forward, pulled her up out of her chair by his warm, ungloved hands and into his embrace. She slipped her arms around him in a familiar way, gripping him tight just above his narrow waist and splaying her fingers out over his back. She could feel the roughness of his hide even through his soft, civie shirt. He rested the side of his face in her hair and breathed her in; she was well familiar with the movement. He did it after every mission, as if proving to himself that she really was there with him. He ran the talons of one hand lightly over her back and used his other hand to hold her close. She sighed into his chest at the familiar touch and ran her fingers over the soft, leathery skin between his plates, trying her best to map them through his annoying shirt.

They were like that for some time before he spoke.

“Calamity…” his voice trailed off, a soft breath of a noise that seemed to settle into her hair and onto her person.

She scoffed at the name, her name, and kissed his chest briskly. “My mom must have had the right idea in giving me that name, given my track record.” Her voice had begun to crack at the end. She swallowed and tried to pull back, only to find he was holding her quite securely. She settled for allowing a space between them and leaving her hands at his back, keeping level eye contact with his chest. “Garrus, please.”

“Cal.” His voice was more insistent now, firm. He used one talonned finger to dip her head up to his so she was looking into his eyes. “You can talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She rolled her eyes and brushed him off. Now there was nearly a foot between them. She hated it. She watched her fish for a moment before looking back at him again. “They’re all dead. Talking doesn’t change anything. We have things to do. I have to file this mission report, I have to—” Her voice betrayed her pseudo callousness as it broke, finally, and treacherous tears spilled over her cheeks. “Goddammit.” She wiped them out furiously with her fists and glared at him. He merely held her gaze with that steadfast clarity she always admired in him. It only took moments for her glare to dissolve into defeat. She let the tears run freely and put her hand on her forehead.

“Over three hundred thousand people, Garrus.” It was a ghost of her voice, a ghost of the confidence she’d given her crew earlier in the debrief, a ghost of everything she was as the weight of it seemed to finally settle over her.

Garrus kept his distance, though she could tell by the way his fingers fidgeted at his side that he wanted to reach out to her. She was sure he had never seen her like this, broken into a thousand pieces of the woman he knew. She wanted to feel ashamed, or at least embarrassed, but there was no room for anything other than the _weight_ she felt now.

“You did what you had to do,” he finally said. His voice was unwavering and his eyes didn’t leave hers.

She ran a hand through her hair and let out a black laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.” She fixed him with a stare of her own and let out a shuddering breath. “Can we just…” she struggled to find the words to say. She took a step forward and slid her hands under his shirt and onto his waist, moved her fingers slowly up and down the sensitive skin there. His eyes widened but she didn’t respond to the change. “Will you just lay with me for a bit?” Her voice came out smaller than she wanted, but she didn’t care. She couldn't take the distance any longer.

His eyes shifted somehow, taking on that softness again. She wanted to get lost in it. He placed his hands on either side of her face, leaning his forehead against hers without breaking her eye contact. “Yes.”

She smiled then, her first real one since…well, since before the asteroid. “Can’t disobey a formal request from a commanding officer, after all.”

One of his mandibles flicked out into the turian approximate of a smirk, and before she had time to react, he had tossed her over his shoulder and carried her to their bed. She let a startled, gleeful noise and scrambled to get a grip on him, but he was already dropping her onto the bed and hovering over top of her.

“Excuse you,” she said with a laugh. “I ought to reprimand you right now for disorderly conduct.”

A low growl rumbled out of him and sent pleasant shivers up her spine. He tugged at the edge of her shirt and painfully slowly untucked it from her pants. She swallowed and watched him, her pulse already quickening. He looked up at her while he ran his hand up her shirt, dragging his talons against her skin from her hips up to the edge of her bra, where his fingers danced around that edge, taunting her.

“You know,” he drawled out. “Everything aside, I _really_ hate it when you leave without telling me.” His talon turned around suddenly and was ripping her shirt slowly right down the middle. Shepard was transfixed. “And you go into certain death missions,” another growl at the sight of her bra. He made quick work of it by slicing the delicate fabric that held it together at its center. The garments fell to her sides, leaving her chest open and exposed to him. “Without _anyone_ to watch your six.” He looked at her while he pinched one of her nipples between his fingers and rolled it around. He let out a pleased rumble at her sharp intake of breath at the touch. He sighed, but Shepard could tell he was fighting his own amusement. “Do you just like driving your boyfriend crazy?” He flicked his tongue out over her nipple and she gasped again, eliciting a pleased groan from him.

She wet her lips before looking at him again through hooded eyes. She smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes.” She bit her lips to fight her grin. “I don’t worry about it too much, though. He’s all bark. With no bite.” The last word came out as a purr and she snapped her flat human teeth together lightly for emphasis, a challenge.

His growled, deep and low, vibrated through both of their bodies in time to some carnal beat. Then his mouth was on her, hot and fierce, his alien blue tongue forcing entry for their approximation of a kiss. Spirits, she would never get over his _taste_. Metallic and earthy and rough. She shoved her fingers into his fringe and dug her nails into the soft skin there. He moaned and broke their kiss. He fixed her with a look that set her on fire all over. She only smirked and leaned up to bite at the soft skin under his mandible while keeping up her ministrations with her hands. He growled in response and cupped her breasts with both hands, sending pleasure pains shooting through her. She stopped her toying as a moan escaped her.

Before she had the chance to respond, he was shredding her pants to tatters and ripping away her underwear until she lay fully exposed beneath him. The sight of herself, clothes ripped away in the most primal way, sent a shot of warmth straight to her groin and made her bite her lip. Her green eyes locked with his piercing blue and she moved her hands to drag her nails over the sensitive skin of his waist. “Garrus…” she moaned.

He leaned down and licked a cool stripe from her collar bone to the corner of her jaw. “I _hate_ when you leave,” he growled.

She moved to respond, but his face was already gone. He was nibbling at her breasts, and clawing down her sides, and _fuck_ he was licking a trail all the way down her body so _slowly_. She looked at him, trying and failing to keep her panting breath in check. He looked at her from between her thighs for only a moment, tongue already half out and a wicked look in his eyes.

He began with slow circles around her clit, taking his time. Shepard threw her head back into her pillow and arched into the movement. He responded in kind with his tongue, moving faster and slower at torturous intervals. He slipped one talonned finger inside her center and she thought that would be her undoing. His tongue stopped as he moved the digit carefully inside of her, remembering the way he could make her unravel with just the right touch.

She moaned as he moved, unable to control herself. She was making a mess all over him and he didn’t care. He removed his finger suddenly and licked it clean, staring at her all the while, before replacing it with his tongue, which moved so far and so deep inside her in those horrible, wonderful circles and she could swear she blacked out for a moment.

“Garrus,” she choked out. He stopped and looked at her. “I want you. Inside me. _Now_.”

In a movement too quick for her to catch he was naked. His lower plates had already shifted and he was very much ready for her. Shepard thanked whatever gods may exist that turians were self-lubricating. She watched as he guided himself toward her, watched the small pointed tentacles at his tip reach for her familiarity. With a sudden burst of need, she tucked her heels behind his spurs and pushed him in, startling them both into pleasured growls and moans.

After the shock of it wore off, Garrus started to move slowly, methodically, as he had all night. No, that wouldn’t do. Shepard dug her heels into that sensitive area behind his spurs again, knowing exactly what reaction it would elicit. He growled at her and stilled, mandibles twitching in that way that time had taught her was pure need.

She leaned up and stole a quick, hot kiss from him. He still tasted like her. She licked her lips and moved her mouth to his ear. “You say you’re pissed?” she purred. She dug her heels in at the same time she dragged her fingers over the skin behind his fringe. “Prove it.”

A rumble shook through him and thus her. He shoved her back against the bed until he was towering over her. His pace was frenzied now, no, angry. She fought back a gasp as the rough patch of scales just above his dick hit her clit again and again and again at that incessant pace. It felt like only moments before she was teetering at the edge of herself. With every thrust she ground her hips in time with him, pushing herself higher and higher. She pulled at him, yanking him close against her as her whole body tightened. She gasped out a sob as she came all around him and saw stars in front of her eyes. With a groan, his own pace increased and became more uneven, until she felt the tentacles at his head dig into her skin as he flowered, again and again, inside of her.  The movements sent more shockwaves of pleasure through her body, through them both, until they were both shuddering and still.

Shepard wrapped her arms around his back as a soft, contented sigh left her. His breath, always so hot compared to her own, pulsed unevenly against her neck as he lay on top of her, though still supporting some of his own weight. Turians did weigh quite a bit more than humans.

With care, he slipped out of her and lay by her side. One clawed hand pulled her against his chest. She nuzzled into his cowl, placing small kisses to the side skin of his neck. The leathery warmth of his hide and plates warmed her aching body and somehow comforted a part of her even deeper than that. He traced something on her back with one claw lazily.

They were like that for some amount of time. But too soon, Shepard felt the rush of endorphins fading out of her skin and leaving ice in its wake. Garrus still held her tightly; relaxed as much as turians could be (they naturally felt much more tense than humans all the time). Shepard tried to breathe evenly, tried not to disturb his peace. She closed her eyes against the cold, willed herself to feel the calm she’d felt only moments ago, but worlds were burning behind her eyes. There was a ringing in her ears, a screaming. Jenkins was burning Kaidan was burning Colonists were burning Bahak was burning Earth was –

“Shepard.”

She opened her eyes and stilled at the look he was giving her. She had been shuddering, violently. His hands were gripped on both of her shoulders. She felt a small measure of pain from where his claws had dug in too deep when his grip was tight. Turian faces didn’t move in the way humans did: They didn’t have as many muscles to display the miniscule changes of emotion. That’s why they had duel toned speech. But she could feel the way his plates had changed around her in an almost imperceptible way, see his mandibles pinch closer to his face, almost like a frown for him, and worst of all, she could see that soft glint in his eyes filled with worry. Filled with concern.

“Cal, you know I like blowing off steam as much as anybody, but…” His mandibles moved again and she heard the start of one of those indecipherable tones her translator couldn’t catch before he seemed to think better of it, and stilled with a sigh. His fingers moved a stray lock of hair out of her face and behind her ear, leaving his hand to rest on the side of her face. The touch was so unexpectedly intimate compared to the cold she had just felt; she leaned into it.

She took a shuddering breath and kissed the inside of his palm. “I—” Her voice choked and she had to shake her head, shake out this nervousness. She looked up and met his eyes as a few small tears slipped down her cheeks. “I tried to warn them. I tried—there wasn’t enough time and the reapers were—” Her breaths had turned into sobs. The tears poured out hot and fast, blurring her vision. “Three hundred and four thousand people, Garrus.” Her voice garbled out his name as she succumbed again to the shaking, to the crushing weight of everyone she’d ever failed. Sobs wracked her body and she moved her hands to make fists in her hair. Garrus only held her tight as she cried, but even that couldn’t calm the racing thoughts she’d been trying to chase away ever since she’d returned. “And I’m so goddamned selfish, because all I can think about is earth. Because if that was earth…”

“Hey.” His voice fell onto her spirit like ice water, knocking the wind out of her and rearing her out of the rabbit hole she was trying to dive into. “That is not going to happen.” He tipped her face up so she was looking at him again, that same softness returned to his eyes. “We’re going to win.”

Her lip trembled. “How can you know that?”

He leaned his forehead against hers and, very purposefully, closed his eyes. Turians did not close their eyes unless they completely trusted their surroundings. Even now, as they were, he rarely did so with her. The action made her breath catch in her throat and close her own eyes to keep new tears from forming.

“Because we have you.” The duel tone of his voice rumbled through both of their bodies and rattled life into her bones. He meant more than the fight, more than being a goddamn hero, or saving the galaxy. “And you won’t stop until the Reapers pay for every life _they_ have destroyed.”

They lay like that for a while, eyes closed, naked, and tangled in each other’s arms. Shepard drifted into that in between place of sleeping and rest. No dreams haunted her. There was no thought or feeling outside of his even breathing, his arms around her. Here, now, for a moment, she felt peace.

Eventually, she rolled onto her back and stared up into the skylight. They were getting closer to the Milkyway now. She could recognize those stars and the clouded dust between them even in the millions of galaxies of the universe. She sighed and looked over at her lover. He was watching her. She couldn’t read his expression.

“Earlier, the council called, after Hackett left.” Her voice was back to normal, firm and unwavering. The shaking woman that had wept in Garrus’ arms was as good as dead to her. Shepard let out an indignant snort and looked up into the blackness again. “They talked about the trial.” She took a deep breath and chanced a glance at him. “Trials in the Alliance can…take time. And since I’m turning myself in, I imagine they’ll take as much as they please.”

He placed his hand on her waist and drew light, invisible designs with his talons and flared his mandibles in a smile. “I’ll be here for you when it’s over, and as much as I can between.” He let out a small growl. “Even if it is bullshit.”

She chuckled and let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Maybe.” She smiled at him and traced the lines of his facial markings over his scarring. “I’m really going to miss you.”

He nipped the tip of her nose, what counted for him as a kiss. “C’mon, Shepard. You can’t go soft on me now.”

She snorted and shoved his shoulder. He chuckled with her, a low rumble that shook their bed. “Just when I try to be nice you have to go and ruin it. No wonder I’m such a steel hearted killer.” Her tone was joking, but she felt an unexpected ring of truth in her words.

“Cal,” he started. It seemed he was invoking her name with that same tone often tonight, she thought wryly.

“There’s something else,” Shepard grumbled, effectively cutting him off of whatever lecture about her good, kind heart he had intended to give. “The counsel did a lot of talking in there, after they talked about the trial. I spaced out at a point. They talk about so much bullshit.” Her eyes moved away from him until she was staring at the wall just above his head. “They mentioned something about…acceptable losses.” She ground the words out. They tasted like bile.

Garrus rumbled something her translator couldn’t pick up. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

Shepard pursed her lips for a moment, thinking, before settling her gaze back to his. “I do not believe in acceptable loss, Garrus. I refuse to. No matter what happens with the trial, I’m going to do whatever it takes to end this.”

He leaned his forehead to hers and pulled her tight to his chest. She folded into his warmth. “I’ll be with you when you do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiii, hello, hi! 
> 
> Wow, this feels surreal. So, this is my first Shakarian fic. Also my first smut fic. Ever. The nervousness was definitely real. But, I finished Mass Effect 3 and I hated EVERYTHING ABOUT IT, so this is the start of my post-ME3 fix-it series "Message Failed to Send" (which is inspired by a ff.net fic that I've credited here, but that will come into play later). This is basically an introduction to my Shep and her and Garrus' relationship. This romance captured the deepest parts of my soul and I will never get over them. The next fic in this series is the longer one and will be from Garrus' POV post-ME3. 
> 
> If you want to talk to me about Shakarian or anything Mass Effect you can talk to me on tumblr at standintheashes.tumblr.com. I'm pretty much on there all the time so there will be fast replies!
> 
> And, finally, thank you so much for reading. You are entirely too wonderful and precious and amazing for taking time out of your life to read this. Comments and kudos are always appreciated. I love you. Thank you. 
> 
> P.S. Edited some typos and inconsistencies. Thank you to anyone who has pointed them out! :)


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